Salon.com: Directed by Jenni Gold and packed with celebrity interviews, "CinemAbility: The Art of Inclusion" tells a Hollywood story that has long been overlooked — namely, how the film industry's depictions of various physical and mental disabilities has profoundly shaped how the rest of the world treats individuals with those disabilities. From individuals of small stature and those in wheelchairs to the protagonist of "Forrest Gump," "CinemAbility" explores how the entertainment industry has taken advantage of the disabled for a quick buck and yet also furthered the cause of spreading compassion and acceptance.
3 comments:
Throughout the years, disability has been more and more addressed throughout the industry. It first started with characters played in shows or movies. I think this form of awareness was a smart choice because most people like to identify with the characters they are watching. Once the audience sees that disabled people are also just as relateable as people without, is when I think people started to see disabilities as normal, as they should be seen. When actors without disabilities are given a role with a disability, it hard to not offend the audience because this type of acting needs to be specific in order for it to not be misconstrued as offensive. I think it's really important to display these kinds of roles because they are playing normal everyday people. It also reassures the audience that a disability is never something to be ashamed of but rather embraced. Many shows have had actors play roles with disabilities and have gotten raving reviews and thus made the shows even more successful. I think it is the industries duty to address the stigma around disability.
This documentary sounds so interesting and needed at this point in the industry. There were so many components of this article that hit the nail on the head for me in how the representation of people on screen should be approached. I also think that doing that is a big task to take on for someone who doesn’t have experience with that kind of thing in their daily life but it is searching for learning opportunities and mentors to help guide you in the right direction. As well as, as an industry not limiting representation to the screen. Also, we need to take away some of the fear of making mistakes. Movement toward the goal even if it is a failure or mistakes were made is still forward movement and I believe were at a point in the industry where we will never be perfect but we need to be aware of these issues and most importantly trying to make changes.
I think one way to get more representation in terms of characters with disabilities would be to just cast disabled actors in roles not specifically written for someone with a disability and then have that disability be something the character has. Maybe the writers would then add some references to how that disability affects them, but mostly they would just have the original character arc of whatever that characters main contribution to the show is. As this article discusses, having characters with a disability where their entire character is defined by that disability isn’t really great. They still need to be interesting people with interesting stories. That isn’t to say I don’t think characters should be written to have a specific disability, I just think people making TV shows could be more open to the possibility of casting someone with a disability in a role that they did not specifically write as a character with a disability.
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